


Trekkie

by afteriwake



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-10 18:53:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4403288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While both of them are stuck indoors during a blizzard Sherlock and Molly settle in to watch the original series of Star Trek. Sherlock doesn't realize quite how big a fan Molly is, however, and is treated to a string of trivia that very well-versed fans would know, much to his surprised delight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trekkie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ditsypersephone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ditsypersephone/gifts).



> So this answers two prompts. The first is from **ditsypersephone** who asked for _Sherlock and Molly watch Star Trek TOS together on a Sunday afternoon. Sherlock loves how much Molly is a fan of it_ (I don't explicitly say Sunday but it's supposed to be Sunday), and the second is **imagineyourotp** ( _Imagine your OTP cuddling on the couch while a massive blizzard rages on outside_ ). All the Star Trek: TOS trivia came from [IMDB](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060028/trivia). Dedicated to my fellow Sherlollians on Tumblr for being awesome.

They hadn’t expected it to snow _quite_ so hard or _quite_ so long. Sherlock had had plans to go back to Baker Street after spending an enjoyable night with Molly at her flat, work on a few experiments and practice the piece he was creating as a gift for Molly for Christmas. And while they were good plans he’d been open to postponing them a bit if Molly had thought to convince him otherwise. But when he woke up and saw the thick pile of snow outside on the street and the snow continuing to fall he had the feeling he might be at Molly’s flat for a good portion of the day.

When they finally emerged from her bedroom around noon Molly had suggested they curl up on the sofa and watch something on the telly, and there was definitely a plus side to that, as he took every opportunity to stay close to Molly that he could. They didn’t have similar tastes in television programs or films, but he had decided that he’d tolerate whatever she wanted to watch so long as she stayed curled up nice and close all day, and hopefully long into the evening. There were a few things she knew he wasn’t particularly fond of, like romantic comedies and historical epics, but he knew she would probably avoid those.

He got settled on the sofa and Molly went to look at her DVDs. “How do you feel about Star Trek?” she asked.

“It isn’t my favorite, but I suppose I can tolerate it,” he said. “Which version?”

“The original series,” she said, turning to look at him with a smile. “I used to watch them all the time with my dad, so I have a special fondness for them. I was particularly taken with Chekov when I was younger. I thought he was fascinating.”

“I never got into that series,” he said. “It didn’t appeal to me. I’ve seen a few scattered episodes over the years, but nothing that stuck with me.”

“Then we should start from the very beginning,” she said, turning back to her collection and selecting a DVD box set. She opened it up and took out the DVD and put it into her player before moving to her sofa. Once she was there she pulled her legs up under her and curled up into Sherlock before taking the remote and pressing play. She got to the menu and started the first episode. “Do you see in the opening credits how William Shatner’s name is bigger than Leonard Nimoy’s?” she said when the opening credits started. “That was all Shatner’s request. It’s 10% larger than Leonard’s and then later DeForest Kelley’s.”

“He must have quite the ego,” Sherlock said, relaxing and putting an arm around her shoulders.

“You haven’t heard stories about him?” she asked, raising an eyebrow as she looked up at him.

“I don’t pay much attention to celebrity twaddle,” he said.

“Well, saying he has an ego is an understatement,” she said. “I mean, George Takei said he had his lines and scenes cut a lot of the time, and it _was_ in Shatner’s contract to allow that. And he was very conscious about his height and had to appear as tall as all the other men on set. His shoes had two inch heels and he wore one and a half inch lifts in them so he could be six feet tall. But it made his posture all funny and made his stomach stick out, so the producer, Gene Roddenberry, he ended up forbidding him from wearing the lifts and made the heels on Leonard and DeForest’s shoes a one inch heel. And…” She blushed and ducked her head slightly. “I’m rambling.”

“It’s all right,” he said, moving his knuckle to under her chin, lifting it up so she was looking at him. He gave her a small smile. “I take it you know a lot of trivia?”

She nodded just slightly. “My dad was on quiz bowl teams at the pub for Star Trek trivia, until he got too sick. I took his place for a little while when I was in university, until he died. Then it just seemed less appealing to me.”

“Well, I think I might find the trivia more appealing than the show, so feel free to tell me everything that you want to as we watch,” he said, moving his hand to caress her cheek.

She smiled at him and then raised herself up and kissed him softly. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into,” she murmured against his lips, a smile on her face. He grinned back and kissed her again, ignoring the episode for the moment. When they broke apart she settled back into her position, and looked at the screen. “They had two models of the Enterprise that they used on the show. One of them is three feet long, and the other one is eleven feet long. That one is on display in the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian. I want to go see it one day.”

“That could be a worthwhile trip,” he said thoughtfully. “Washington D.C. wasn’t a very bad place that I spent time at.”

“Oh, I would love that,” she said. “I think I would love to go anywhere with you.”

The scene changed and he saw the characters. He vaguely knew who everyone was, or at least who the important ones were. “What are the differences in the uniforms again?”

“Gold is command, red is operations and blue is sciences. Operations includes engineering, security and ship’s services and gold includes navigation and weaponry. You’re going to see Uhura and Scotty in gold for a bit because the red shirts don’t appear till later.” She snuggled closer. “Did you know that the gold uniforms often appeared apple green?”

“Why was that?” Sherlock asked.

“Some said it was because of local interference with television signals. But in actuality it was because the tunic really _was_ green and appeared gold under most lighting conditions on set. You can really see it when Captain Kirk is wearing his special ‘wrap-around’ tunic and the special occasion dress uniforms.” Then she lifted her head up and he could see she looked quite excited. “You see the insignia on their uniforms? The arrowhead shape?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“It was supposed to be for the Enterprise crew only. When you see guest Starfleet characters come in later, they’ll have different symbols, and Commadores have a starburst or sun insignia. But when the first motion picture went to the screen in 1979, the arrowhead shaped insignia became adopted as the official insignia and has been used ever since, _except_ in the television series Star Trek: Enterprise, since it’s technically set before the original series.”

She looked quite proud of herself for relaying that bit of information and he couldn’t help but smile. “I will have to remember that.” He turned his attention to the screen and saw a woman who didn’t look at least vaguely familiar. “Who is that woman?” he asked, pointing. “I don’t recall her being a prominent character.”

“Oh!” Molly said with a wide smile. “That’s Yeoman Janice Rand. She was supposed to be a major character, the female lead, but she was let go in the first half of this season. But Grace Lee Whitney, the actress who played her, got to bring her back for the majority of the movies, so if you end up liking her you’ll get to see more of her if we ever get to see more of the movies.”

“Now I know the more prominent woman is Uhu…” He paused, trying to remember her name.

“Uhura. She doesn’t have a canonical first name in the original series but Nichelle Nichols said it was Nyota. The new movies made it official. Did you know her character and the character of Nurse Chapel were created because she and Majel Barrett were having affairs with the creator of the show when he came up with the series? Nichelle ended hers but Majel ended up marrying him and staying with him until he died.”

“Interesting,” Sherlock said with a nod.

Molly was quiet for a moment. “Are you sure I’m not boring you with all of this trivia?” she asked with some hesitation. “I mean, it’s all useless pop culture knowledge, the types of things you discard from your mind palace.”

“But it interests you, so that’s why I’m listening to it,” he said. He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “What are your top five favorite pieces of trivia? Regardless of whether it applies to anything currently on the screen.”

Molly furrowed her brow slightly as she thought. “Well, I suppose my absolute favorite doesn’t have to do with the show, but a bit with one of the actor’s family,” she said. “Leonard Nimoy’s father was a barber who owned a barbershop that was still in operation in the 60s, when the series was popular. In an interview Leonard said that there would be children who would come into his father’s barber shop asking for a ‘Mr. Spock’ haircut and they never realized it was Mr. Spock’s dad who was cutting their hair.”

“That does sound like the type of fact that would appeal to you,” he said with a smile. “What else?”

“Let’s see…” She thought for a moment. “You know how everyone attributes ‘Beam me up, Scotty’ as coming from the show? Kirk never says ‘Beam me up, Scotty.’ He says various other phrases with bits of that phrase, but never the whole thing in any episode.”

“I’ve heard John use that phrase before,” he said. “I may have to inform him that he’s been misattributing the quote.”

She gave him a grin. “Very few characters had their middle name or initial said on screen, just Kirk and Chekov. And Montgomery Scott’s name was completely improvised by Gene Rodenberry and James Doohan, the man who played him. James was hired because he could do all sorts of accents and he did quite a few for Scotty and Gene liked the Scottish one, so when it came time to come up with a name they picked 'Scott' because Gene liked James's brogue, and 'Montgomery' because that was James’s middle name.”

“It is a very impressive brogue,” he agreed. “Anything else?”

“Well, technically those were two facts,” she said. “So I only have one more to share.”

“I’ll be nice and count it as one, if you’re having trouble deciding,” he said.

“Well, I know one you might find interesting,” she said. “So you know how Captain Kirk’s nickname for Dr. McCoy is Bones?” Sherlock nodded. “It stems from the term Sawbones—”

“Which is often used as slang for a surgeon, especially one who was either a Naval or Military Doctor,” Sherlock said. “It’s in reference to the process of amputation, in response to problems that were distressingly common until recently.”

“I’m impressed,” Molly said with a wide grin. “It also was used in westerns, which was something that Gene Roddenberry, DeForest Kelly and members of the cast and crew were involved with before Star Trek. Anyway, most of the time Captain Kirk calls him just plain Bones, but in the episode ‘A Piece of the Action’ he calls him Sawbones. And in the original scripts for the episode ‘Shore Leave’ Sulu calls Dr. McCoy Sawbones.”

“I may use that as a new nickname for John,” he said, thinking about it for a moment. “All right. One more fact, and then we should concentrate on the episode for at least a little while.”

“There are so many to choose from,” she said with a frown. “But I suppose I’ll go with the one about how the Klingons were created. They were first in the 1967 episode ‘Errand of Mercy’ and were created by Gene L. Coon. They’re named after Lieutenant Wilbur Clingan, who worked with Gene Rodenberry when he worked with the LAPD. And the reason they look different than the Klingon that came later ended up getting attributed to differences between Northern and Southern Klingons. The way they look now is more how they were intended to look but the budget didn’t allow for it at the time.”

“I think you squeezed in two facts at once,” Sherlock said with a slight smirk.

“Well, they were related,” she said innocently. “But I’ll be quiet now and we can actually pay attention to the episodes for a little while before you get the urge to hear more trivia.”

“I estimate we’ll get through one full episode before that happens,” he said. “Perhaps two. I rather like seeing you be rather enthusiastic about this show.”

“Well, if you end up having to stay here overnight again we can stay up as long as you want and I can go into trivia about how they do the transporter effects and what GNDN on the tubes mean and why the Stardates make no sense,” she said, giving him a quick grin before lowering her head.

“I look forward to it,” he said, pressing a quick kiss into her hair. He got comfortable and turned his attention to the television show again. This was not a bad way to spend a day snowed in by a blizzard, he thought to himself, curled up with Molly on the sofa and seeing her enjoy something she was passionate about. He should have days like this more often. It would probably do him a world of good.

**Author's Note:**

> For those interested in the last three bits of trivia Molly mentions:
> 
> ▪ The shimmer of the transporter beam was actually a film of aluminum powder being blown into the air by an industrial fan, under a bright spotlight.
> 
> ▪ In the hallways of the Enterprise there are tubes marked "GNDN", these initials stand for "goes nowhere does nothing".
> 
> ▪ Stardates are used throughout the series to give the audience an unrealistic look at the time-frame in which the series occurred. However, NBC paid no attention to the producers' intents when deciding on airing order, so the dates were not heard in numerical sequence.


End file.
